The Shock and Awe Campaign at the St. Paul RNC continues unabated, and eyewitness reports are flooding all the technology I got, including good, old-fashioned, hang-out-in the-coffeeshop-and-say-hi-to-people v.1.0. Eyewitnesses at the Mears Park gathering of yesterday afternoon, at which tear gas, “impact rounds” and physical threats ended in the arrests of at least 284 people have the city concerned, regrouping, and cautious. However, passersby at my CPHQ locale, the Black Dog Café a few blocks away, witnessed little to no violence being perpetrated by the black-clad young people targeted in the incident. Although videos now online do show blockades proceeding as originally planned, and one assault against an officer intended to intercede on a particularly rough arrest, I have yet to meet an eyewitness able to confirm the window-smashing or tire fires that supposedly brought out the National Guard.
Eyewitness accounts do, however, relay numerous tales of officers intimidating young people, refusing one woman who was suffering from heatstroke water (in fact, pouring a full bottle of it out in front of her face), violently threatening activists, and gleefully exclaiming with joy after impact rounds harm those standing by. Cops at other detainments have outright lied about the potential dangers of their weapons or actions (one told a detainee that tasers aren’t lethal in any circumstances.) Nine detainees are rumored to have been hospitalized this morning after constant calls that they receive the medical attention they require; no confirmation nor locale of hospitalization has yet been reported.
One CPer, Kathryn Milholland, was detained alongside the nearly 300 other activists in St. Paul last night. She has now been charged with felony conspiracy with intent to incite riot. (Processing however, is proceeding unusually slowly, with only two arrestees completing the process by noon today.) Milholland, 20, also on leadership council on UCF, and very active with the ACLU, had been traveling with a group of 10 other students from the Orlando area, some of whom were also detained. Her medical allergies are concerning given reports that detainees are not being given proper medical care. Milholland had made very clear in advance that she had no interest in being arrested.
The number of arrests from last night does not necessarily reflect the numbers of arrestees whose identifications have not yet been verified—the list of whom was “hundreds long” according to the receptionist at the Ramsey County Jail I spoke with this morning about Milholland. (Cold Snap Legal Collective notes that although some reports of activists’ detainment are coming in, women detainees remain largely unaccounted for.) Clearly marked legal observers, medics, journalists and other support teams are among those arrested or missing. Other experiences of police harassment and threats continue to pour in.
In another incident last night, approximately 170 riot police and 30 mounted officers surrounded and threatened ten singing CODEPINK activists with arrest and physical violence. Video is available here: http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2008/09/17010-9108/
“It was police state stuff, and it was scary,” said one seasoned CODEPINK activist caught in the incident—a usually fearless one. “They were posturing for violence and we were not.”
Cold Snap Legal Collective, the organization advocating for protestor’s rights, has now had their phone calls blocked by the Ramsey County Jail. Concerned readers are urged to call the jail at 651-266-9350 and demand that they allow detainees free calls to their hotline number: 651-356-8635. More information and action guidelines http://coldsnaplegal.wordpress.com/">here.
Also feel free to check in with CODEPINK's blog PINKtank for updates as the day proceeds: I’m collecting eyewitness accounts as I can find them.
The intimidation, harassment, violence and oppression is unbearable here in St. Paul. (And I thought it was bad when I was a young girl punk growing up in the Midwest!)
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Thanks for the information - I'm from St. Paul and it's super scary to see pictures and videos and hear stories of intimidation and violence. I have multiple friends protest and a friend's boyfriend who works for the St. Paul PD... This convention pits friends against friends and people (extreme protesters and police forces both) are jumping to drastic measures, perhaps needlessly.
Thanks for the update. I spent all day yesterday reading Twin Cities Indymedia. I got calls from comrades from Pittsburgh and Syracuse and both told me that pretty much the entire crew from Boston is in custody. They're not identifying themselves, though, so aside from the aforementioned reports, I don't even know which of my friends are missing and who's accounted for. It'll probably be days, if not weeks, before I know what became of whom.
Black Dog Café. Snarl. I was there in January with the Welcoming Committee folks [who are now in custody on bullshit conspiracy charges after their houses were raided]. I ordered a sandwich with tabbouleh and they gave me turkey. Way to fuck up a vegan's week hardcore by feeding them the carcass of a poisoned, tortured beast.
This pretty much sums the events of the day up: http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2008/09/01/pepper.mpg
Girl with flower, police with pepper spray.
Actually, what sums up the RNC is the hundreds if not thousands of riot cops currently training guns directly on the Poor People of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. So not funny it hurts!
Sorry I've been bad about responding to messages—I haven't had the best luck finding wifi out on the streets during, you know, the action!
I was just at the Ripple Effect protest at the Capitol building. They tried to shut us down about 15-20 minutes early, eventually cutting the power to our stage, and there were moments where the riot police started to form up, but nothing so bad as what was happening nearby to the Poor People's March. Medea Benjamin of CODEPINK put it this way: the police weren't there to protect the Poor People. They were there to protect the Republican conventioneers *from* the Poor People. She's badass, by the way.
I think it's interesting how obviously placed the snipers on the rooftops were--they were even standing up, and easily visible from the protest zone. How do a few hardly hidden snipers protect the safety of a huge crowd? Looks like they were there primarily to intimidate us.
I live here, though, and I have to say that by and large, the cops of Saint Paul are really nice, helpful people. I put it down to the city overreacting--after all, Chicago's hosted 25 conventions, and they're a lot better with their police presence.
It's almost as if the Republicans think that the poor have some reason to be set against them...
Oh, this takes me back to "the way we were." Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, nor did the Roman Empire fall in a day. I've worked both sides of this fence, and all I can say is, at least nobody's getting shot, a la Kent State. At least not yet. It's "Homeland Security" vs. everybody else, in a nutshell. This situation has been brewing for a long time, so don't take it personally. To whoever took up the unfinished fight of Dr. King's Poor People's March, I want to say THANK YOU!!!
What they're failing to realize is the significance of YouTube.
Said significance being that this time, and in a very literal sense, the whole world really is watching.